When I started working with my Uncle Bob last summer, I assumed that construction would be an easy, fun way to make a few extra bucks. However, I quickly discovered that construction work was serious business, filled with risks, difficulty, and rewards. After almost being creamed by a few backhoe booms, I learned how to stay out of the way. However, staying safe around heavy machinery isn't always easy to do. My blog talks about how to use machinery properly and what you need to do to stay safe so that you can return home to your family each and every day.

Staying Safe Around Heavy Machinery

2 Ways In Which A Truck Body Is An Asset To Your Mobile Retail Business

22 June 2015

Ashley Hayes

Retail sales in the US are estimated to have been more than $4.5 trillion in 2013. However, online (e-commerce) shopping, through the use of computers, tablets and mobile phones, is thought to have contributed significantly to this with an estimated $40 billion in sales. This has translated to a significant reduction in the foot traffic in brick-and-mortar retail businesses with an approximately 50 percent decrease over the previous three years seen in 2013.

With the average start-up for a brick-and-mortar business in retail at an average of about $32,000, it can be daunting to consider this decrease in foot traffic and how it will affect your small business, especially if you are among the 78 percent of small business owners who are not yet connected to e-commerce and m-commerce through mobile apps and solutions to take advantage of online shopping. In starting a small business of your own, maybe it would be better to start a mobile retail business taking merchandise around in a truck body.

The trick is in advertising

One of the advantages of investing your approximately $20,000 in start-up costs to use a truck body to house your business is that it automatically provides a means of advertising. Truck-side advertisement can be used to announce your mobile business as well as provide a means to make up to $1,000 monthly in extra money by advertising for other companies. Other ways of getting paid for advertising can be through negotiations with the company to pay your insurance premiums or the fuel costs for driving around.

It would be wise to advertise for a company that is not in direct competition with your small business and with a 96 percent rating on visibility and impact in the public, this along with bulletins on social media about your location for the day could make both ends of your business (retail and advertising) quite profitable.

Take it where it needs to go

While brick-and-mortar retail stores are stationary and you would have to employ means to encourage patrons to come to you, a mobile retail business takes the business to the customers. In this way you are able to compete with the ease of e-commerce. Making the shopping experience of your clients interesting and different is also a plus in mobile retailing and is possible with a truck body as there is space to house a wide variety of interesting quirks. A few ideas include making a lounge, putting in a bubble machine or bar, adding wood panels or many other ideas to match your business.

Ensuring that your mobile unit has music, too, that can match the look and feel of your retail merchandise can be an added attraction for drawing customers to you and increasing your slice of the billions of dollars available for the industry. Contact a company like Koenig Body & Equipment Inc for more information.